Playing with off camera flash...

[TamiAz]

I'm taking an online photography class..Off camera flash. I was doing my daily practice and got this shot. I thought it was decent enough. Does he look to flashy? This is my lab, Kona. He's a handsome boy!

DSC_9716Handsome Kona with flash copy by TamiAz, on Flickr

 

[xzyragon]

I feel like the shadows on the far side of his face are too dark for the mood you're going for. If your pup had his face more angled left (his right) it'd work better.

But I'm impressed that you got your dog set up to pose for you. Still a fantastic shot and playing with flash is fun!

 

[Derrel]

I think the lighting ratio is just a bit high for the subject matter and the dog's mostly happy,loving expression. The shadow side is fairly dark, and the highlight side is pretty bright. What bugs me about this is not so much the absolute tonal value differences, but rather the abruptness, the rapidity of the transition from light to dark...it's just such a small distance, where the light goes from bright, to dark, just BOOM! The rapid fall-off is probably because the light is fairly close to the dog. On the flip side, the shadowed side DOES have detail in the shadows, but overall, I am not really digging this lighting.

Yeah, it is decent. I think the shadows cast by his paws at the bottom were cropped off in favor of too much top space...the paw shadows had the potential to make him look more three dimensional, but the shadows needed more space below them, to show them in relation to where he is resting. This is not a bad shot, and it is practice, which is always useful. Not sure what we can learn from this, except that that light at that distance looks like "that". One eye has the umbrella's catchlight, the other has just a pin-point catchlight; to me, that is almost always a drawback. HIs muzzle is cutting off the light pretty strongly, so his right eye is almost 100% in shadow. I don't like that, since the other eye has clear color visible while the other is what's sometimes called a "dead eye", meaning no color, no real eye detail visible.

Learning to light off-camera without any modeling light means you do not have the benefit of having the shadows and catchlights and the shadow/highlight relationships actually visible to you while you move the light around; the 100% REAL-TIME, constant feedback of a modeling light in your umbrella is a HUGE benefit to you when you are learning how to light. I mention all this stuff, everything I have said, as a way to offer you some genuinely helpful, constructive C&C, because when using a speedlight + umbrella, ALL of the light placement/positioning/distance/results information is "hidden", until a photo has been made and reviewed. You are almost literally "shooting in the dark" when learning this way; the actual light you get exists for like 1/1500 second, and then it's gone.

Honestly, if you want to learn how to light, take some tape and mark the floor in a big arc, with tape marks in a massive arc. Use a tack and a 8-foot piece of string, and mark the floor in your work room or dining room or garage or wherever, so you can learn your umbrella's results at 15 degrees, 20, 30,40,45,60,75,and 90 degrees.